Just Breathe
by otaku908
Summary: Your name is John Egbert, you know that your anguish doesn't matter, you're just a hindrance, and as far as you can recall you've never really been concerned about that fact. Until all you've known about you comes crashing down. OOC. AU. You've been warned. Pairings, if there is any, are undecided. Rating may change.


You watch. That's all you really do now, other than the normal mundane things. You've never ate much, even less now, and you're skills at running is still really good...for running from bullies. You don't leave the house aside from school, Dad does all the shopping, and your friends are all preoccupied with _things_ or something - you never really know, actually, but that's fine (You mean, who would want to hang out and talk to _you_ of all people when there's everyone _else_?). Aside from all the homework, hygiene, and extra credit work, all you really do is breathe and observe the world around you as it moves along with time.

It's strangely odd how detached you feel nowadays...it's kind of like the entire 'Mom' situation all over again. Auto mode is turned on indefinitely.

You see how the trolls are now slowly melding into the human crowd and vise-versa, how racism is slowly, oh so slowly, fading away along with sexuality and other racial issues. How your friends are all changing before your eyes into something else entirely new for you, while you just stay a constant of numbness. How the bullies don't really come after you anymore after you've stopped really reacting to their attacks and the pain that doesn't feel as electric and burning as before. You watch, as if it was a television show, as all of the world warps and morphs as it always had, so ever-changing, but now it's leaving you behind instead of taking you for the ride.

Those friends who have only talked to you through Persterchum and Skype for the past however many months don't really notice much of a change. You hide it so easily. The thinness that's far worse than before can be hidden with baggy clothes and a few over-sized bulky sweaters, the bags under your eyes fluctuate, but your make up (which used to be so helpful for many pranks, really. Better for disguises, too) can cover it up wonderfully. Your smiles, that are a little less genuine and quite a bit more plastic, is still more real than most people's own grins when they're actually happy, so that's fine.

Skype with a crappy camera (an old one, even though you _do_ have a newer, better one, you prefer to have an excuse) also helps immensely. The bruises and cuts that adorn a lot of places on you heal pretty fast, and you've never scarred other than before your mom left, (which you've never really noted. Life is weird enough.) so thankfully that's not a problem (and then if it _is_ then there's still makeup and "fashion" statements). The only really noticeable part is that you don't babble as much, however you can always rebute with the fact that high school is really tiring and being a NHS* student can be absolutely exhausting (when, really, it's not, and it's pretty damn great for keeping your mind off of things).

Your Dad's too preoccupied with work, and he hardly sees you, so you can't really fault him at all. Apparently, you and him also missed your birthday. Didn't know it was that far within the year yet. Your busy, busy friends, while stock full of important plans and such, didn't though. None of them accurately said it on your birthday, but they were running a tight schedule, along with annoying teenage hormones (the only thing that really emotionally affects you these days) and therefore it wasn't truly their fault (though, still, you had a tad of suspicion that it was a phone reminder or social media one that told them it was). Thankfully, they also sent gifts. So, yeah, that was really damn nice.

Schools a bore, you're passing with flying colours. Everything is so easy, and there's almost no _real_ amount of extra study needed aside from those pesky time consuming projects (which are actually not pesky to you...but you're a nerd so, meh). Lunch is daydream time. Worksheets are simply found either through phone research on the internet or via textbook means. The teachers pay you no mind, and they don't really call on you unless you're really possibly the only one to know the answer...but Mindio can do that for you. The only time they ever really bother you is when you get perfect scores in a report card and all they have to comment is compliments and socially inept concerns. It's not your fault that your peers only really talk to you about school related things, is it? But yeah, school's a bore, a wonderful brain-numbing one, yet still a bore.

Your heads in the clouds the majority of the time, while your brain simultaneously records all of the days happenings in which you remember very clearly. Heh. The only thing your brain works for the best is remembering things about people you see and hear personally, not really anything else.

Oh, and about that whole bully situation...by lessen their attempts at pain on you, you mean that they stopped verbally assaulting you. The blows are very much the same, as if you were merely a sandbag or mud on their shoe that they needed to be rid of, yet never truly would. Why waste their breath speaking when they can put even more pain into your bones?

But that's the thing...pain doesn't really affect you much. It's more of a release than hurtful. The sting, the sear, the heat of it all...it sends you into blissful nothingness. Instead of making you feel like utter shit, it makes you feel better. Pain is your vice in staying sane. Without it...you'd probably be like Gamzee when he's sober, except without the killing others and only the emotional damage and blood. Mmm, it's just euphoric. Addicting. You cannot get _enough_ of it.

Sure, maybe the loneliness, the striking emptiness in your gut, hurts. The hunger makes you feel as if you can hear your brittle bones _creak_ and_ snap_ at the slightest of things. Perhaps the slashes that go hand-in-hand with your bruises aren't so much inflicted for the pain, but for the reminder that you're alive. It could really be that, yes, you're worth caring about and, no, you aren't worthless. It's possible that you want to live as much as you yearn to die. However, for now, you'll just keep in mind that at the moment no one cares, and that it's alright to destroy yourself from the inside out.

Your name is John Egbert, you know that your anguish doesn't matter, you're just a hindrance, and as far as you can recall you've never really been concerned about that fact.

TBC

...

***National Honours Society**

**(A/N: Anyway, this is an AU. That just sorta...happened. So, er, yeah. If anyone has any suggestions for it, or if anyone knows any stories with a depressed/bullied John, please tell me. Or not. But, er, yeah. I'll be woking on this, along with SaSTBaB and other KHR. I literally have no excuse for not updating in like, what, two years? Just that laziness is not something that should become a daily part of your life. Anyway, this is short, I'mma be out. Review if you want, but really you can just Follow or Fav. Idc. ALSO I KNOW THIS IS SHORT I JUST FAIL AT WRITING LONG THINGS OKAY. Okay.) :3**


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